I'm going to start whistles with my high schoolers next week. We're going
to make ocarinas and then polish with smooth stones and corn oil, decorate
with slip and do a dung firing. Can't wait.

Tonite I went to a little demo of micaeous pottery. The guy, Daniel
Ortega dug the clay in New Mexico--maybe some of you down there are
familiar with it. It has a huge portion of mica which holds heat and
evenly distributes heat. Anyway, he made traditional pots hand spinning
on a puki (sp?) and scraped and rubbed smooth with slip. To fire he put
them right into a fire on a grill and surrounded the pots with sticks.
When they
turned dull red they were finished--he threw on a little horsehair to add
some interest. They are beautiful--a little bit reduced where the sticks
were close. They are cooking pots and you can cook right on the stove
with them--temper first by boiling water for 5 minutes. I'm really
interested in trying to mix some mica into low fire clay and see if it
will work. Anyone know about this? Sid